Here are about a hundred and twenty pictures of artworks from the National Capital Region taken since 2003 selected from a body of work about twice as large and that is still growing.

Like many other professional photographers, I have often made pictures of art for institutions and artists. While doing this I have learned much, made many friends and occasionally a little money. However much fun doing that kind of work is, my satisfaction from it has always been tempered by the creative limits placed on me as someone else's hired "shooter". The client always provides the subject, approves the treatment and judges its success.

This body or work is made outside of those constraints. I am trying to approach the artworks photographically as an art user who picks and chooses views without the pictorial requirements usually imposed by a paying client.I have picked and chosen my subjects according to my interests and I photograph them as I please. This means that sometimes the images flatter the art and sometimes not, in many cases the artworks are displayed at a distance or just a detail is seen and sometimes the artwork is not the strongest part of the image.

These pictures show a wide spectrum of stuff including temporary public works, a few graffiti works, some commercial appropriations of well known artists, monuments and works that exist in the exotic territory of the contemporary fine arts milieu. . There are good, bad, neglected , expensive, forgotten , reviled, sentimental and sometimes wonderful things that suggest issues common to public art in general. What is it for? Who paid for it? Has it lasted. Should it last? How does it work? What does it mean? In the ten years or so that I have been doing this many artworks have been removed or destroyed as well and I have tried to indicate them if I know their fate.

The pictures are accompanied by brief texts that tell you the name of the work, the artists, where it is and if I know who owns/commissioned it. Sometimes, there are additional texts which discuss issues that are relevant in more general terms.

I hope you like them - I will continue adding to this site for quite a long time I expect...... December 2003